Justice Minister Denys Malyuska announced his intention to take the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP) to court over its decision to order the cancelation of Yuriy Vitrenko’s appointment as CEO of Naftogaz.
The announcement was made on the Ministry of Justice’s Facebook page on June 15, shortly after the NACP announced its decision earlier in the day.
The anti-corruption body ordered Vitrenko’s April 28 appointment to be scrapped due to his alleged breach of conflict of interest laws.
Vitrenko served as acting energy minister from December 2020 to the end of April. The NACP said that his Naftogaz appointment violated a statute that requires a year to pass before a departing official who has had power over a state enterprise is allowed to get a job at that enterprise.
The NACP said that it investigated whether Vitrenko was compliant with this law and decided that he wasn’t.
“As a result of the investigation, we discovered a breach of the aforementioned provisions of the law,” the agency wrote. “In his fulfilment of his duties as Deputy Minister (and acting Energy Minister) during the period from 21 December 2020 to 28 April 2021, Yuriy Vitrenko systematically took part in the making of decisions directly related to the work of Naftogaz Ukraine.”
The NACP has demanded the cancelation of the sections of the governmental decree which appointed Vitrenko.
However, Malyuska was quick to point out that these sections also appointed the enterprise’s supervisory board, whose removal the NACP did not request.
The justice minister also questioned whether the law highlighted by the NACP applied to Vitrenko, as he had served in his ministerial role for less than a year.
The controversy follows the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers on April 28 to fire Andriy Kobolev from his position as CEO of Naftogaz and appoint Vitrenko in his place.
Vitrenko had previously served as Kobolev’s deputy at Naftogaz between 2014 and 2020, until the two men had a falling out.
Several hours after the NACP announced its decision, newspaper Ukrainska Pravda released an interview with the agency’s head, Oleksandr Novikov, in which he denied that the Vitrenko case was motivated by pressure from the United States.
Recent media reports suggested that U.S. President Joe Biden may have delayed meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky due to Kobolyev’s dismissal.
“During my time at the UN general assembly, I had several meetings with the U.S. Department of Justice, who hold Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts in high regard. No questions about our checks on Naftogaz were asked at any of these meetings,” Novikov said.
He added that the NACP’s order will be given to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal for execution.
